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Kang Seung-woo

Korea Times Business Reporter

Kang Seung-woo is the Business Desk editor at The Korea Times. Prior to this position, he covered politics, national affairs, finance and sports.

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Companies

Korean Re eyes global expansion

By Kang Seung-woo Staff reporter Korean Re, the undisputed No. 1 reinsurer in Asia, has a shot at becoming a top-tier global player by expanding beyond this region. Its CEO Park Jong-won said that the company plans to deepen its roots in international insurance markets. “Korean Re intends to sharply increase its share of overseas business. Thanks to solid credit ratings from S&P, its overseas business focus will shift from Asia to the Middle East, Eastern Europe and South America in the maiden stage,” Park, 65, said in a written interview with The Korea Times. The credit-rating agency gave Korean Re an A minus in 2009 for the fourth consecutive year. “After that, we will move further to Europe and the Americas. Korean Re is trying to become a truly global reinsurance company from a regional one.” The reinsurer, established as a state-owned company in 1963, was on the verge of bankruptcy during the Asian financial crisis in 1997 due to sluggish earnings. At that time, its operating loss reached 382 billion won. But Park was named as CEO in July 1998 and the form

Jul 27, 2010By Kang Seung-woo
Companies

Rate hikes should be moderated

By Kang Seung-woo Staff reporter A top financial regulator said that the risk of growing household debt and project financing (PF) loans are potential threats to complete economic recovery. “Although there is a little possibility that household debt will become insolvent in the near term, rate hikes and destabilizing housing prices may adversely affect households’ financial abilities to make loan payments,” Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) Governor Kim Jong-chang said in a speech during a conference on Jeju Island Monday. “We plan to strengthen our risk management and increase the portion of long-term, fixed-rate household loans.” Since the Bank of Korea (BOK) raised its key interest rate on July 9 for the first time in 17 months amid escalating concerns over inflationary pressure, banks have been in a rush to elevate interest rates on loans and igniting fears that many overleveraged borrowers will go belly up due to swelling interest burdens. “We will expand the support for people vulnerable to rate increases and discuss ways to slow down the hike pace by activat

Jul 26, 2010By Kang Seung-woo
Companies

Singer Rain lashed over stock sell-off

By Kang Seung-woo Staff reporter Singer Rain, whose real name is Jung Ji-hoon, has been blamed by minority shareholders and the public as the recent sell-off of his firm’s shares has incurred huge losses for them. Individuals who invested in J-Tune, an entertainment company that Jung established by capitalizing on his fame, are calling for an investigation into him on suspicion of breach of trust after its stock prices suffered a freefall from 325 won on July 9 to 220 won Thursday on the KOSDAQ. Furthermore, a minority shareholder requested on Cheong Wa Dae’s website of late that Rain be subject to a probe. J-Tune has been Jung’s agent. It was confirmed on July 9 that the 28-year old had sold his shares of 4.72 percent of the company and he stepped down from the largest shareholder to a singer attached to the agency. In addition, the news that he received more money than the company’s earnings while he was the largest holder is irking the shareholders. According to J-Tune, both sides reached a 15 billion won, four-year contract in October 2007 right after Jung bec

Jul 25, 2010By Kang Seung-woo
Companies

POSCO expands to Vietnam

By Kang Seung-woo Staff reporter POSCO’s effort to enhance its business in Southeast Asian markets is blossoming, as its Vietnamese unit, POSCO VST, will expand its stainless steel production capacity. The world’s third-largest steelmaker said Wednesday that it will enlarge its capacity from 85,000 tons annually through 235,000 tons in 2013 to eventually 285,000 tons in 2014. POSCO said in March that it would boost its stainless steel production capacity by 200,000 tons per year in the coming years in order to meet growing demand in the region. It forecast that demand for steel in Vietnam is likely to rise about 8.7 percent per year until 2020. In addition, the company will use the second factory of POSCO VHPC (Vietnam Ho Chi Minh Processing Center), completed last week, as a distribution center for other Southeast Asian nations as well as Vietnam. With the production expansion, POSCO expects to see its business grow and enhance its competitiveness with high-quality technologies and products in Vietnam and Southeast Asian regions. POSCO has also been in talks t

Jul 21, 2010By Kang Seung-woo
Companies

GS Group chief calls for boosting growth engines

By Kang Seung-woo Staff reporter GS Group CEO Huh Chang-soo said the company needs to maximize its growth engines in the near future. “Five years from now we will form a cornerstone to affect the fate of GS Group for the next 100 years,” the 61-year-old chairman said in an executive meeting Wednesday. “We need to maintain the growth momentum in businesses which are on track.” He also said that business strategies need to have the right timing and meet customers’ demands, and are also required to do business to the full. “We do not have much time left, so we need to do our best to pull off lots of successes in five years time,” he said. Huh asked executives to prepare for the second half comprehensively. “There are still sovereign debt problems and asset bubbles, so we need to gear up for those challenges,” he said.

Jul 21, 2010By Kang Seung-woo
Companies

Antitrust regulator going after predatory big firms

By Kang Seung-woo Staff reporter The governent has planned to launch a full-scale inspection into large corporations in August in a bid to root out any unfair business practices between large and small enterprises. The Fair Trade Commission (FTC) said Wednesday that it will launch a task force to begin an inspection in August, which will focus on detecting any incidents of large firms’ unfairly wielding power over smaller firms, such as demanding price cuts and stealing technology. The group consists of ranking antitrust officials and private sector experts The move comes as smaller firms are still feeling the pinch despite a faster-than-expected economic recovery, which is in stark contrast to large firms enjoying record sales and profits. Prime Minister Chung Un-chan recently voiced concerns about the deepening polarization between large and small firms, ordering the FTC to come up with measures to tackle the problem. “Large enterprises are leading Korea Inc. with record sales but the benefit of an economic recovery has yet to translate to small firms, which has int

Jul 21, 2010By Kang Seung-woo
Companies

Alpensia gives boost to PyeongChang’s Olympic bid

By Kang Seung-woo Staff reporter The Alpensia Resort, whose name means “Alps in Asia,” has mostly been known as an add-on to PyeongChang’s Winter Olympic bid. The newly-built resort in PyeongChang, Gangwon Province, 180 kilometers east of Seoul, will be the venue for the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2018 Winter Olympics if the country claims the right to host the “elusive” Winter Games in its third straight bid next year. But Cha Sang-gu, the president of Alpensia Corporation, has tried to gain independence from the Olympic campaign as the resort is ready to establish itself as the nation’s best year-round composite tourist complex regardless of the Games. “Thanks to PyeongChang, we have been well advertised in and out of Korea and it will get even better if the city bags the Games,” Cha said in an interview with The Korea Times at the resort, located 700 meters above sea level. “But even in the case of failure, there will not be any serious damage to us because Alpensia is well prepared to stand on its own feet.” Gangwondo Development Corporation (GDC), t

Jul 19, 2010By Kang Seung-woo
Companies

Korea lags behind in economic opportunities for women

By Kang Seung-woo Staff reporter Despite women's increasing participation in economic activities in South Korea, they still lag far behind advanced countries in economic opportunity due to discrimination at workplaces, the latest study showed Friday. In its July report, The U.K.-based Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) announced that Korea ranked 35th in its Women's Economic Opportunity Index with a score of 66.2 points out of 100, among 113 surveyed countries. The index score is based on the assessment of each country's laws, regulations, practices and attitudes that affect women workers and entrepreneurs. The index was designed to evaluate every aspect of the economic and social value chain for women, from fertility to retirement. In particular, Korea was rock bottom in terms of discrimination in the workplace, with its standing at 104th with 38.3 points. In women's legal and social status, Korea came in 66th, while ranking 53rd and 25th in the labor policy and practice categories, respectively. European countries dominated the list with Sweden, Belgium and Norway s

Jul 16, 2010By Kang Seung-woo
Tech & Science

Are you sure smartphone transactions are safe?

By Kang Seung-woo Staff reporter With smartphone attracting growing buzz, it has pushed up smartphone banking as one of the fastest-rising categories in mobile applications. The cutting-edge service allows consumers to check balances, transfer money and pay bill on a much easier platform than online banking. Ironically, for banks, rising popularity of smartphone banking has created a new concern. With more people engaged in financial transactions through smartphone, there are growing concerns over the security of the advanced banking service. Against this backdrop, local banks have stepped up efforts to develop new methods to guard smartphone banking against any financial crimes in order to protect the users from security concerns. "Like Internet banking, we cannot be free from financial crimes completely. So banks have been preparing for three methods to protect customers, such as public-key certificates, keyboard protector and vaccine program, as we do on personal computer," an official of a local bank said. As Korea has just taken the first step onto the smartphon

Jul 15, 2010By Kang Seung-woo
Companies

3 in 10 part-timers not paid minimum wages

By Kang Seung-woo Staff reporter Lee Seung-hyup has bitter memories about some of the part-time jobs he's had. For five months, Lee, a 29-year-old studying for an exam to be a certified public accountant (CPA), worked as a supervisor for a private library, where people pay to rent a desk for studying space. When he quit last month, he wasn't paid the money he was promised. What he got was less than the minimum wage. "The minimum wage is 4,110 won per hour, but I made much less," he said. Lee is not alone. This year, three out of 10 part-time employees are paid below minimum wage. Albaro, a portal website for part-time jobs, said Thursday that 225 of 603 part-time workers or 37.3 percent said they did not get the guaranteed payment. The current minimum wage is set at 4,110 won per hour and it has been revised to increase 5.1 percent to 4,320 won next year. "I did not know the minimum wage until after I started work there," Lee said. "But there was nothing I could do because I had to make money as soon as possible." Many part-time workers were in the same po

Jul 15, 2010By Kang Seung-woo
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